After my college graduation I suddenly had a whole lot of free time and I didn't quite know what to do with myself. That's when I discovered the Public Library. Since then I've been reading non-stop. Some books have been good, some books great, and others ... I'm ashamed to admit that I read them at all. But alas, I have thoughts about every book I read and thus Brooke's Book Reviews was created.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Love Beyond Time

by Nancy Campbell Allen

Dedication: "To my parents, who always told me I could achieve anything I wanted to and to my husband, who told me to go ahead and do it."

First paragraph: "The tension was thick in the small office. Tyler Montgomery's face was a barely controlled mask of fury. 'I told you never to set foot in this office again. Either of you,' he said through clenched teeth."

Review: Amber Saxton, a bright young LDS doctor, and Tyler Montgomery, an overworked accountant, find themselves in an impossible situation. Amber has a head-on collision with a swinging door and Tyler's head meets the butt of a sawed-off shotgun but neither of them wakes up with anything familiar around them.

They're thrown into a time 137ish years in the past. Both Tyler and Amber want nothing more than to go home but neither one knows what they need to do to make it happen. Instead, they find themselves facing the wounded soldiers straight off the civil war's battlefields and meeting some of their ancestors as well as coping with things from their own past that might rather be left forgotten.

So let's get straight to the point of this stuff - I liked the book. It wasn't completely gripping or oozing with unpredictable plot lines, but it was entertaining. Both characters had a lot going for them and might be a bit on the "mary-sue" side but it worked. There was a reason for it. Plus, parts of their odd relationship reminded me of my favorite fictional relationship. It might be because the girl in that relationship is a smart, young doctor and the guy is a cocky, egotistical soldier. To say the least, their personalities shared a lot of similarities.

Anyway, since it was a LDS novel there were some things in it that might not make sense to people that weren't at least a little familiar with the religion. I think, for the most part, Allen managed to write it without too many unexplained customs and whatnot but I figured I should add that as a prerequisite just in case.

Like I said before, the story isn't really a page turner but you do want to keep reading to find out what exactly happens, or rather how it happens since I called the entire underlying plot before I even read the first page (LDS Fiction is nothing, if not predictable). But it is an entertaining read and I think that the LDS doctrine that it shared was a nice touch. I think that Allen really put her own beliefs out there and that takes some courage and I respect her for that and I appreciate her willingness to share them with the world.

It was a nice, fun, easy read. If you're in the mood for something short-ish and sweet, may as well read this one.